“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Gal 5:22-23)

The language of the heart is the language of love that our Heavenly Abba uses to communicate His heart and intentions for our life. Because God’s language or words are creative they are not like the words that we use. Our words could be creative like His and many New Agers teach that our words do create but our words are not pure language like His. The Apostle James describes our language like this:

“For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well.” (Jas 3:2)

 He is telling us that our communication is a cause of stumbling. If we could avoid stumbling in what we say, then we would have what we say. BUT God in His mercy recognizes that most of us have not yet achieved perfect speech.

 James continues to describe us this way:

“But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.” (Jas 3:8-10)

Fortunately for us, we are not alone in our resource for our speaking. We also have the voice of the Lord speaking to our heart and His voice is creative, meaning it brings for reality. Our choice is to hear, sh’ma in Hebrew and to trust or what we call believing, our faith.

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” (Rom 10:17)

Our hearing which is more than our physical or even mental capacity to attend to the voice of God, releases His power in our lives. The Bible is full of accounts of people who have heard God, trusted in what they heard, and miracles followed. The book of Hebrews, the eleventh chapter, is replete with examples.

This is because God’s speaking is always creative. It performs what He intends.

“So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” (Isa 55:11)

 So our spiritual training is in listening and discerning what is the creative voice of the Lord and what is only our imagination or even the voice of the enemy. Once we learn to hear and discern the creative voice of the Lord and speak that which we hear in agreement then it shall surely come to pass.

 The question is how do we do that? Last session we spoke about peace as the atmosphere of the language of the heart. We also spoke earlier about the anointing, focussing on the prophetic, priestly and kingly anointing. Today I want to turn our attention to joy.

Joy is a fruit of the spirit as is peace. All fruit requires the seed of the same fruit. This is why Yeshua said:

“You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? "So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. "A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. "So then, you will know them by their fruits.” (Mat 7:16-20)

 The fruit of a person’s life reveals the seed, the Word that is creative in them. You know orange seed was planted if you have oranges. You can only have fruit that is of the same kind as the seed. This principle was established creatively by God on the 3rd day of creation:

 “Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a third day.” (Gen 1:11-13)

 Why am I hammering this so much? Because it reveals how we can be perfected in our heart language by accessing the seed principle of the fruit of Spirit.

You see life is about sowing and reaping. We have to intentionally sow to reap.

“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” (Gal 6:7-8)

We will reap regardless of what we sow, because it natural law but if we want to reap the fruit of the spirit, we need to sow to the spirit.

What does it mean to “sow to the spirit”? I think it means to sow the seed of the fruit we want in our lives.

Let’s look at “joy” as not only a fruit of the spirit but a result of God’s creative word. Looking again at Isaiah 55:11 and continuing to verse 12 this becomes a little clearer:

“So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. "For you will go out with joy And be led forth with peace; The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, And all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” (Isa 55:11-12)

The creative word of the Lord brings the fruit of joy and peace. It impacts mountains and hills and trees. I think the Lord speaking metaphorically here about mountains and hills and trees. What He is saying is that Word of the Lord, the language of the heart transforms not only our lives into joy and peace but also the “mountains” and “hills” in our lives and the trees. Remember Yeshua said:

“For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.” (Mrk 11:23, NKJV)

The ancient Hebrew word for mountain, “har” or hill is the picture of the revealing of a head or a seat of authority. It is also used for the picture of the swelling of the belly of a pregnant woman. This, I believe gives us a composite idea of an authority but also a seed, the unborn child who becomes visible when the mother begins to show. The joy of motherhood is activated by the seed of God’s word.

Look at example of Miriam the mother of Yeshua and the joy that came into the world like the song, that was the transforming power of God’s word, believed and trusted in and the fruit of joy.

Trees clapping their hands is the picture in Hebrew of the counsel of the Lord. The word for tree is “etz” and for counsel is “otz”. This tells us that when we heed God’s counsel joy is the result of that trust.

How do we sow to joy? Well we get a glimpse of this in the famous blessings and curses chapter of Deuteronomy, 28. Looking at verse 47, we see that the curse comes on us when:

“"Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things;” (Deu 28:47)

Joy is a key and a choice that we make that brings blessing and breaks curses. Let’s look at the word: The ancient Hebrew word picture for joy is simcha, which comes from the root letters shin, mem, and chet. The letters visually represent "teeth" (revelation or proclamation), "water" (chaos or a secret place), and a "fence" (a way to protect or reveal). When combined, they create the picture of joy as revealing or proclaiming something when chaos is devoured.  

Again, similar to peace, shalom, it is the destruction of chaos through revelation and proclamation. 

We know that joy is a power key:

“Then he said to them, "Go, eat of the fat, drink of the sweet, and send portions to him who has nothing prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength." (Neh 8:10)

To walk with joy is to walk fully trusting God. We see this in the interaction of Miriam and Elizabeth as recorded in the Gospel of Luke:

 “When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud voice and said, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! "And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? "For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. "And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord."” (Luk 1:41-45)

 The baby in Elizabeth’s womb is the picture of blessings in our life. They leap with joy inside us when we put our trust in the Lord. That trust results in joy which is the acknowledgement of the seed that is alive in us that leads to more joy.

 Activating Joy: There are several tangible ways to activate joy.

1) Open face exercise

2) smile

3) laughter, find funny things and laugh often. Laughter is good medicine.

4) Conscious thankfulness. Peace guards our heart when we are thankful, but joy empowers us. Joy is power. It is the power to radiate love.